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Updated: June 23, 2025
It was a sleepy summer afternoon toward the end of June in 1802. Baranof had left a guard of twenty or thirty Russians at Sitka and, confident that all was well, had gone north to Kadiak. Aleut Indians, impressed as hunters, were about the fort, for the fiery Kolosh or Sitkans of this region would not bow the neck to Russian tyranny.
Baranof haggled the Englishman tired, and compromised for one-fifth the demand. Two years passed, and the fur company was powerless to strike an avenging blow. Wherever the Russians led Aleuts into the Kolosh hunting-grounds, there had been ambush and massacre; but Baranof bided his time.
Day and night the sentinels paced the beats on the stockade and along the waterfront, till, weary of waiting, the Kolosh finally dispersed to their homes. In the great tribal houses several families lived, sometimes as many as fifty or sixty persons.
He mentions the abundance of deer on the islands and also says that mountain sheep were killed by the Aleuts and brought to the fort. He must have confused the sheep with the goats, for the sheep never approach the coast so closely, and he speaks of the wool being used for weaving the blankets for the ceremonial dances of the Kolosh.
Even as late as the date of the lease to the Hudson's Bay Co. the Russian ships that sailed among the islands to trade with the Kolosh were compelled to act with the strictest caution. Only a few natives were admitted on board at a time, the trading was done in a space near the stern, and was conducted under the muzzles of loaded cannon concealed in the fore part of the ship.
The Indian village of Sitka was almost in the same place as the present town, grouped around the Baranof hill which was called by the Russians a kekoor. On the top of the kekoor was a redoubt, and a stronger fort was near the mouth of the Indian River, or Kolosh Ryeku.
Sentries paraded the gateway; so Baranof sailed back to Kadiak. The Kolosh or Sitkan tribes had only bided their time. That sleepy summer day of June, 1802, when the slouchy Siberian convicts were off guard and Baranof two thousand miles away, the Indians fell on the fort and at one fell swoop wiped it out. Up at Kadiak honors were showering on the little governor.
This feud was not settled until 1918, when a peace treaty was consummated between the kwans on Armistice Day, a coincidence which is much made of by the tribesmen. The Kolosh were as firm believers in witchcraft as any of the more civilized nations.
The remaining fifteen men seem to have been upstairs about midday in the rooms of the commander, Medvednikoff. Suddenly the sleepy sentry parading the balcony noticed Michael, chief of the Kolosh, standing on the shore shouting at sixty canoes to land quickly.
They were in the center of the public gardens which covered the knoll and were approached by beautifully bordered walks. Farther along, on the left of the walk, is the remaining Russian blockhouse, the last of three which formerly stood on the line of the stockade that protected the town from the Kolosh.
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